cannabisnews.com: Levin's Victory Goes To Pot





Levin's Victory Goes To Pot
Posted by FoM on January 22, 2000 at 12:08:53 PT
By Alex Breitler, Record Searchlight
Source: Record Searchlight
Federal agents take marijuana, plants before the scheduled release to him.For the second time in two weeks, medicinal marijuana user Richard Levin entered the Shasta County Sheriff's Department evidence lockup Friday expecting to get his marijuana back.And for the second time, the Redding man walked away without his pot.
Two federal agents confiscated 13 bags of processed marijuana and pot plants about 3:30 p.m. — a half-hour before their scheduled release to Levin. The seizure followed the signing of a U.S. attorney's office warrant in Sacramento Friday morning.Sheriff's officials said the warrant allowed only the release of all noncontraband belongings taken from Levin when he was arrested — everything except the 41 pot plants and 22 ounces of processed marijuana.''Our purpose in this was to protect the integrity of the office of the sheriff,'' said Undersheriff Larry Schaller. ''He takes an oath of office, and that includes federal and state statutes.''We're certainly believers of states' rights, yet we had a clear federal seizure warrant for the contraband.''Wearing big smiles, 49-year-old Levin and his Redding lawyer, Eric Berg, arrived about 4 p.m. at the lockup at Butte and Court streets in Redding for the expected release of the marijuana. Five minutes later, Levin emerged bearing two small boxes and an angry expression.''The sheriff's office just stole all my marijuana,'' he said. ''It's total disrespect of the law and total disregard of the judge's order.''Levin, acquitted in December on charges of growing pot for sale, expected its return after a Shasta County judge issued a court order last week that property seized during a May 1998 raid of Levin's Redding home must be returned. But sheriff's officials at the time said they would have to check on the legality of such an act.At a hearing Jan. 14, Judge Bradley Boeckman said the pot must be returned directly to Levin himself. And Tuesday, Berg requested the marijuana be picked up by Levin on Friday.They had no knowledge that federal authorities were getting involved, Berg said.''They (sheriff's officials) are absolutely jerking us around,'' Berg said. ''They lied. They're violating the law.''While the 41 plants were long dead and the processed marijuana may have no longer had any medicinal value, getting the confiscated goods back would have at the least been a symbolic victory, Levin said. He has warned in the past he might sue the county, and he reiterated that again Friday.''That (a lawsuit) is a real strong possibility,'' he said. ''We're going to have to talk about it.''On Friday, sheriff's officials did return one of Levin's pistols, two scales, his home owner's life insurance policy and marijuana grower's guide.Schaller said U.S. attorney's officials made their decision to obtain a seizure warrant sometime Thursday night. He said the sheriff's office had been in contact with federal officials throughout the week, but declined to say whether local officials asked them to issue the warrant.''We'll comply with both (state and federal law) within our oath of office,'' Schaller said. ''Obviously, when state and federal law are in conflict, we'll look at it in the most legitimate way possible.''Sheriff's officials say they want to comply with Proposition 215, the 1996 law that legalizes marijuana use for medicinal purposes with a doctor's approval. But a statement from Sheriff Jim Pope says that the law must clarify how much marijuana patients can possess ''before it can be appropriately and uniformly enforced.''''The fact that marijuana is contraband under the federal law and the fact that we need clarification on the legislation, that's the dilemma,'' Schaller said.Reporter Alex Breitler can be reached at 225-8344 or at abreitler redding.com.Published: January 22, 2000© 2000 Record Searchlight - The E.W. Scripps Co. All rights reservedRelated Articles:Pot Must Go Back To Owner Judge Clarifies Order - 1/15/2000http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4328.shtmlSheriff Still Pondering Medicinal Pot Policy - 1/14/2000http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4321.shtmlLegal Pot User Should Be Entitled To His Medicine-1/13/2000http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4301.shtmlSome Patients Find Pot is an Arresting Experience-1/12/2000http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4285.shtmlPatient Doesn't Get Pot Back Yet - 1/12/2000http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4281.shtmlPatient Will Get His Pot - 1/12/2000http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4279.shtml 
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Comment #4 posted by greenfox on January 23, 2000 at 14:51:23 PT
Media Puns
"Levin's Victory Goes To Pot"Does it? That's interesting. I think this is completely irresponsible jouranlism. "goes to pot", for cripes' sake. If this term hasn't been beaten to death, then I don't know what has....
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Comment #3 posted by kaptinemo on January 23, 2000 at 10:30:20 PT
It all starts with education
I wish I *were* as clever. All that I really am is someone who is thoroughly ticked off at the behavior of *our* elected officials and the people who are answerable to *them*, namely the local, State, and Federal law enforcement officials (LEOs). We pay their salaries. And yet, we are brutalized by them, our rights trampled by them, and, occasionally, our lives *taken* by them - often without any warrant of any kind. And all they get is a (wink,wink,smile, smile) slap on the wrist and a 'bad boy!'I've taken care of someone who was suffering through chemo, and the stuff they gave her didn't stop the nausea. To know that a cheap weed that grows any damn place you plant it could do more than the $50 a pill (no lie; that much) medicine (called Kytril) they gave her is bad enough. But to know that this poor elderly women would lose her house, her car, her bank account, and possibly her freedom, on top of her suffering cancer and chemo... that's just too much stupidity to allow continue. To answer your question: it comes down to self education. At the risk of sounding paranoid, I have always distrusted any government pronouncement as being self serving. I grew up in the Vietnam Era. We heard nothing but lies from the government about how we were winning the war - right up to the Tet Offensive. Then the Pentagon Papers were made public, and people learned exactly how much they had been lied to. So, now, they are doing the same thing with the WoSD. Because the gap between the obvious truth (i.e.,the potheads I knew as kids became very successful in their lives instead of becoming denizens of the nuthouse, in direct contravention to the pot-leads-to-insanity lie) and the government lies became so impossible to ignore, I began to search for the *reason* behind this obvious flim-flammery.And found, as anyone who really digs into this history will tell you, that the story is not about cause and effect, but of how racial bigots scared of Chinese laborers 'stealing' low paying jobs from Whites, and Black men mating with White women drew up these incredibly stupid laws. So, I did what a lot of other people do, I started writing Letters to the editor (LTE's) by following the MAP template at the site you gave. I put on a suit and tie (I am a self-professed computer geek and *hate* ties) and spoke with my Represenatives and pestered my Senators and tried to pin them down as to how they are going to vote, and why. And, yes, you have to be 'public' about it. And, sadly, I have chosen to remain 'clean' so that when the goons try anything, they will come up empty. (Because they *will* try to silence their opposition; anyone who has the tiniest scrap or articulation can point out the fallacies of their positions, and demolish them. There have been situations in the past, where people who have had the courage to be public about this issue have been hassled by the cops. One guy was targetted *specifically* because he *had written an LTE*!)But unless people like us take that risk, we will always be the rabbits to their hounds. And they know that. That's why they act the way they do.
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Comment #2 posted by JrB on January 23, 2000 at 08:16:28 PT
Kaptinemo for Pres
You are a very cunning linguist my friend. How do you get active?
The Media Awareness Project
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on January 22, 2000 at 14:03:08 PT
Allocation of resources
In California a brutal murder is committed. Someone is robbed at gunpoint. A child is mentally scarred for the rest her life by abuse from a child molestor. So, where are the police? What are they doing to track down the perps and bring them to their much-vaunted 'justice'?They're too busy stealing a sick man's pot.In fact, they are going out of their way to do it. They seek to rub his nose in the fact that they have power, while he, a citizen and their *effective boss*, must take this abuse of power *we* grant *them*.It's election time, friends. Time to remind the pols (and therefore, their hired guns, the police chiefs) that they are but vessels of power. There are better things to do than to make like petty thieves.
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